


The Sameen Shaw Handbook (1st Ed.)

by DEM2, digifreaks, grimorie, Hagar, lookninjas, offkilter



Series: The Sameen Shaw Handbook [1]
Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Character Biography, Espionage, Fanwork Research & Reference Guides, Gen, Intelligence - Freeform, Medical School, Meta, Military Background, Multimedia, Pre-Canon, Spies & Secret Agents, Timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-15
Updated: 2014-06-15
Packaged: 2018-02-04 19:07:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1789951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DEM2/pseuds/DEM2, https://archiveofourown.org/users/digifreaks/pseuds/digifreaks, https://archiveofourown.org/users/grimorie/pseuds/grimorie, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hagar/pseuds/Hagar, https://archiveofourown.org/users/lookninjas/pseuds/lookninjas, https://archiveofourown.org/users/offkilter/pseuds/offkilter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of Sameen Shaw essays. </p><p>Part one includes an exhaustive timeline accounting for both canon and real-life considerations, and 101 intro essays to the US Marines, Intel and the world of Covert Ops.</p><p>Part two includes an exploration of dissocial personality from multiple angles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Factuals

**Author's Note:**

> This meta is group effort compiled from a series of tumblr conversations that occurred over several weeks by the above-mentioned.
> 
> This “Handbook” is not exhaustive nor is it supposed to be. It’s presented as a first-stop reference: an aggregate of relevant canon and an idea of what should be researched more in-depth.
> 
> Canon references, screen captures and personal contributions are annotated in the text. We did our best to use canon references and real-life data as much as possible.

### Timeline

_Compiled by DEM2, Hagar, grimorie and offkilter_

 

  * 1979 - Iranian Islamic revolution, Shaw’s mother(-to-be) flees the country with help of Shaw’s father(-to-be) (Canon reference: s03e18. Recounted by Shaw. -Hagar)
  * ~1981- Shaw was born. (This and all age references calculated from canonical anchors. -grimorie) (And restricted by the need to fit in everything Shaw’s accomplished. -Hagar)
  * 1988 - Shaw’s father brought her for a [Philadelphia Eagles vs Houston Oilers ](http://www.pro-football-reference.com/boxscores/game_query.cgi?tm1=phi&tm2=oti&yr=all)game (5~7 years old) (Canon reference: s03e16 Mors Praematura. "Root at knifepoint talks to Shaw about October 2, 1988 being a road trip of importance" -offkilter)
  * 1993 - Shaw’s father killed (10~12 years old.) (Canon reference: s03e05 Разговор | Razgorov.[Screen capture](http://media.tumblr.com/13e8fa8354db026a671075de1ff63dc0/tumblr_inline_n5vwkqdkUX1r8joz3.png) -offkilter. "She was “about [Gen’s] age” in 1993. Genrika was ten. The actor playing young Sameen was about 11 (not yet 12)." -DEM2)
  * ~1999 - Graduation from school/undergrad (To make the timeline fit, we're assuming Shaw was in an excellence program that allowed her to graduate with a baccalaureate degree at the time she would've otherwise graduated high school. Information on these programs supplied by DEM2)
  * 1999-2001 - Active Service. (Shaw’s USMC tattoo, [screen capture](http://37.media.tumblr.com/e3a4fcf1713b558bec45b6a4755bcfb9/tumblr_n5we9bppBZ1qev436o2_500.jpg); Shaw’s father’s USMC tattoo,[screen capture](http://24.media.tumblr.com/f62d49cd8d29618d210db9c3917db7ce/tumblr_n5we9bppBZ1qev436o1_500.jpg). -grimorie) (During this period, Shaw would’ve had to have been deployed and done something beyond exceptional and impressive, or the ISA wouldn’t have been interested in her later. -Hagar)
  * 2001-2004 - Medical School. (Shaw in Active Reserve, i.e. one weekend a month. -Hagar.)
  * 2004-2005 - Shaw in residency ([Emergency Medicine](http://personofinterest.wikia.com/wiki/Sameen_Shaw));  (22 ~ 24 years old) (Reference: s03e10 Devil’s Share.[Screen capture](http://media.tumblr.com/0368d299e73d94a16d1c83e5eaa2e26a/tumblr_inline_n5vwoi5XcI1r8joz3.png) -offkilter) (Licensure can typically be obtained within 1yr, so Shaw’s probably licensed to practice. However, she did not complete her residency - an Emegency Medicine residency is 4yr long. -Hagar)
  * 2005-2010 - ISA Training (Assuming 4yr for training + 1yr supervised missions, based on public data for equivalent roles at other agencies. -Hagar)
  * 2010 - Shaw on her first Northern Lights solo (27~29 years old) (Canon reference: s03e16 RAM.) (Estimated to be her first solo based on comments from the ep + real-life standards. -Hagar / Estimated: November - December per RAM, given Nathan Ingram’s date of passing. -DEM2)
  * 2013 - Shaw (and, possibly Cole) stopped a radiological bomb from exploding near a country day school in Georgetown where [Senior Intelligence Adviser to the President,] Manuel Rivera’s children studied. (Canon reference: Recounted and confirmed by Control in s03e22 A House Divided).
  * 2013 - Joined up with Machine Gang. (30~32 years old) (Canon reference: s02e16 Relevance)
  * 2014 - 31~33 years old



**  
**

 

### Intelligence 101

_Compiled by Hagar_

This section is intended to introduce basic concepts in intelligence. It’s compiled from reliable, public-accessible sources (primarily the [ Encyclopedia of Espionage ](http://www.faqs.org/espionage/)), and geared towards terms and concepts that are relevant for Person of Interest.

 **The intelligence cycle.** As defined to the US, the intelligence cycle has five steps: planning, collection, processing, production and dissemination. “Planning” is the policy step of deciding which intelligence is required and at what priority. Obtaining this information is “Collection”, and comprises most actions colloquially recognized as “spying”. “Processing” prepares raw data to be assessed in “Production”. Finally, the prepared intelligence product is disseminated to the appropriate consumers (including but not limited to operations groups and policy makers), and the cycle begins again.

Let us consider an example: a recording made from a wiretap. Installing the wiretap and obtaining the recording are collection. The recording will then need to be processed: transcribed and possibly translated. The ready, annotated transcription will then be the subject of analysis. (Importantly, “analysis” is always of a body of products in context, and not of a single one.) Finally, the products of analysis will be disseminated to the consumers.

 **Types of intelligence.** Types of intelligence are determined by the type of the source. In the example above, the source was a wiretap; this kind of information is known as “communication intelligence”, or COMINT. COMINT is one kind of signal intelligence (SIGINT). The other kind of SIGINT is electronic intelligence (ELINT). Signals from a radar system are an example of ELINT content. A satellite photo is an example of visual intelligence (VISINT). Open-Source intelligence (OSINT) sifts through publically available sources to extract usable intelligence. Lastly, intelligence collected from human sources is referred to as HUMINT.

In the context of Person of Interest, much of Finch’s activities towards handling the numbers are SIGINT and OSINT collection, processing and production (Reese being the sole consumer for Finch-produced intelligence).

The Machine serves in all roles: it collects intelligence from various sources (OSINT, SIGINT and VISINT), it analyzes this raw intelligence, and it disseminates the numbers as its products. Note that the numbers then serve as a planning direction to those who receive them: Finch’s collection effort is guided by the Machine’s product.

 

_**Figure:** an illustration of the Machine's internal cycle, the Irrelevants cycle and the way the Irrelevants cycle is originated from the Machine cycle. Not depicted is the Relevants cycle, which originates off the same point in the Machine cycle._

**Intelligence officers and agents.** An “officer” is a person employed by an intelligence agency. The use of the word “officer” does not imply a military status; CIA HUMINT operators are known as “case officers”. The human source used by a case officer is an “intelligence agent”. Repeat: an officer is employed by an agency, an agent is used by an officer. (And yes, the FBI’s “special” terminology is, well, special.)

 **Covert operations.** Any and all intelligence-related operations, carried out in silence: they are not meant to be publicly known. Covert operations are typically carried out in foreign countries, but can also be executed domestically. They may be carried out by intelligence officers, by [ military forces ](http://www.faqs.org/knowledge/United_States_Special_Operations_Command.html) or in collaboration. Covert operations may be for many purposes, including but not limited to intelligence collection (e.g. planting a wiretap or otherwise “bugging” a target, obtaining copies of documents, HUMINT handling) or more classically offensive purposes (kidnapping, assassination).

 **Special Operations Forces (SOF).** US Military units which may be engaged in covert ops. Includes (non-exhaustive): Army Special Forces (the “Green Berets”, 20 groups of 3 battalions each - this is a huge cluster of units, not a single unit, and it’s a huge-ass cluster at that), Delta Force, Army Rangers, Navy SEALs (in particular DEVGRU, otherwise known as Team Six), Marines Corps Force Recon and various Air Force Special Forces units.

 **Deniable assets.** Officers and agents whose allegiance will be denied by the agency operating them. Uniformed soldiers are ordinarily not deniable assets, but SOF operatives may sometimes be. Non-uniformed operatives and officers pretty much always are. Deniable assets who had been caught or otherwise compromised are on their own and cannot expect a rescue.

 

### Sameen Shaw & The US Marine Corps

_by offkilter  
_

The Marines get all their medical support from the Navy. I’m having a hard time seeing Shaw as an enlisted recruit with her level of education, no matter if she were planning on being a doctor or not, though that is not completely off the table. I wouldn’t be the slightest bit shocked if she were a line officer.

(“In the[ United States Armed Forces ](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Armed_Forces) , the term line officer or officer of the line refers to a [ U.S. Navy ](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Navy) , [ U.S. Marine ](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Marine_Corps) , [ U.S. Air Force ](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Air_Force) or [ U.S. Coast Guard ](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Coast_Guard) [ commissioned officer ](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Officer_%28armed_forces%29) who exercises general command authority and is eligible for operational command positions, as opposed to officers who normally exercise authority within a specialty. Officers who are not line officers are those whose primary duties are in non-combat specialties including [ chaplains ](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_chaplain) , [ attorneys (only U.S. Army and U.S. Navy) ](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judge_Advocate_General%27s_Corps) , [ supply ](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Combat_support_occupations) and [ medical services ](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_medicine). A line officer may hold authority over a non-line officer of higher rank by the nature of their job, but is otherwise expected to observe normal customs and courtesies outside that role.” - Wikipedia)

Heck, it’s ENTIRELY possible she got through med school on a military scholarship, and if she “washed out” as a doctor (though there’s NO WAY they’d really kick her for the things they said in the flashback), she’d still probably owe time and/or money to the military for her training, and might have chosen to discharge that debt via the Marines instead of Navy (which would be a more natural course—or just paying back literally with money). [Editor’s note: this scenario assumed a different timeline than the above. In this scenario, Shaw completed her MD immediately after her undergraduate degree, but postponed her residency until after her active duty period.] Had she commissioned as an MD, she’d have gone through Officer Indoctrination (jokingly called Fork & Knife school as it teaches you basic military orientation) as a newly minted Navy doc and would already be a Naval staff corps officer. In order to become a Marine officer she’d probably have had to go to [ Officer Candidate School ](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Officer_Candidates_School_\(United_States_Marine_Corps\)) to complete a 10 week [ Officer Candidate Course ](http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Officer_Candidates_School_\(United_States_Marine_Corps\)&action=edit&section=6) and then onto [ The Basic School ](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Basic_School)for 26 weeks to learn how to lead people into combat.

If she were kicking butt and taking names in deployment, I could see her getting the attention of some interested parties.

If she were an enlisted recruit, she’d have gone to Parris Island for boot. Parris Island, 4th Battalion, is the ONLY place female enlisted Marine recruits train, so no “Hollywood Marine Camp” for her; the Marine Corps is only 5% women, so they consolidate. Some helpful links:

  * [Boot Timeline](http://www.military.com/join-armed-forces/marine-corps-boot-camp-schedule.html); Basic is 13 weeks.
  * Wiki article about Marine Corp Recruit Training [here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Marine_Corps_Recruit_Training).  
  * Post graduation, wiki states:  “After ten days of leave, Marines will attend the [School of Infantry](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Marine_Corps_School_of_Infantry) (SOI); east coast graduates will attend SOI East at [Camp Geiger](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Geiger), while west coast graduates will return to Camp Pendleton for SOI West. Non-[infantry](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infantry) Marines will attend a course called [Marine Combat Training](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_Combat_Training) for 29 days, then proceed to the appropriate school for their [Military Occupational Specialty](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_Marine_Corps_MOS) (which vary in length). Infantry Marines attend the [Infantry Training Battalion](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Marine_Corps_School_of_Infantry#Infantry_Training_Battalion) for 59 days. Then these newly trained Marines are assigned to their first unit.”



 

 

### Why Sameen Shaw is a Special Operations Special Snowflake

_by Hagar_

Let’s establish a quick scale: Infantry combat training is less than 1 year, and most countries will draft or let one enlist at 18yr of age; whereas Ranger School (US Military) is several months, you need at least 2yr of a perfect service record to be considered, and it still doesn’t get you into the 75th Regiment (having a Ranger Tab doesn’t make you A Ranger). If you‘ll look up data for other SOF units it will be the same tune: you need several years of flawless service record (during which you did tons of training on top of basic infantry stuff) just to apply, and then you’re looking at months to years of more training (and your contract commitment being doubled just to begin with).

SOF operatives will typically be at least 30yr old. This is for two reasons. One is psychological, and will be discussed in the section Operational Character. The other reason is simple: skill takes time. These age/skill considerations also apply to non-military Intelligence operatives, for the same reasons.

This “skill” includes not just directly-combat-relevant skills (like marksmanship and hand-to-hand combat) and other physical skills (e.g. rappelling). Other skills are also necessary or desirable. Language skills are often part of the package. Medical skill are always part of the package. This is for a very practical reason: SOF-grade operatives are expensive, they’re routinely deployed where they cannot be rescued.  If your SOF operatives can’t take care of their own injuries when no one else can get to them, they’re just not going to last very long. Moreover, they are often the ones doing the rescuing.

Things that make Sam Shaw lucrative: she’s a native speaker of some variant of Persian (Farsi or Dari; Sarah Shahi speaks Farsi) and she’s a full MD who completed the first stage of an Emergency residency or very near so.  (The Emergency dept. is the hospital’s battleground. I have it on personal testimony that skills are transferable.) Things working against Sam Shaw: she’s a woman from a military background. Until 2013, the US Military did not deploy women into known combat conditions, even if they were combat-trained. (i.e. women soldiers could be deployed, but you can’t send them into known combat.) Of course, women soldiers ended up in combat anyway. This restriction just prevented them from getting recognition for it. “Recognition” doesn’t just mean medals - it also means promotions and benefits. In order to catch the eye of someone at the ISA, Shaw had to have ended up in some spectacularly bad situation (that she was never supposed to be in) and performed beyond extraordinarily well.

The timeline above puts Shaw at 29yr old at the time of her first solo. Scroll back to the top of this section: this puts her at the young for where she’s at, and that’s before factoring in a full MD and a partial residency. So, yes, she’s a special snowflake - but she’s a special snowflake because she’s both dedicated and talented as fuck.

 

### Visual Study: Mors Praemature

_Compiled by grimorie  
_

 


	2. Personality & Morality

### Sameen Shaw & Team Machine

_by offkilter_

On Shaw not being good at undercover, or being a “team player” in early season 3, I have maintained that Shaw has been an EXCELLENT team member if prone to independent decisions and mouthiness once she commits herself into part of a team.

Early days of season 3 obviously suffered from a fumbling of characterization and script for everyone (except Root and to some degree Carter): in season 2 Shaw was given high marks as an agent; Cole, Hersh, and even Special Counsel/Penn2 and Wilson admired her;  in Relevance, no one blinked at her ability to blend into high society and be competently killer….and loyal to the Cause, if not the people within it once they betrayed her.

Early season 3, I’m pretty sure what they MEANT to show with how they handled her was that she was freelancing for them just to test them out. She had lost her only friend, been grievously betrayed, and her second chance at having what she considered a useful life wrecked (though I think her and Reese’s inner drive and need for purpose are not quite the same), so why the HELL would she trust these guys and their seeming ridiculous, low-level, stupid assignments? How could she possibly take saving some guy’s ass from a likely well-earned beating (if maybe not deserved snuffing) seriously when she was just a short while ago saving the country from truly evil men instead of cushioning low level scum from their own fall?

And then she’d remember what happened there, and I’m sure it would put her in a sour frame of mind.

But anyway, challenging the boys at every turn was, in my mind, her testing them, their cause, their sincerity, and getting feedback. What if these do gooders were actually raging assholes with something diabolical up their sleeve? Poking, prodding, and eye-rollingly going along with their set ups helped her feel in control in a number of ways.

She’s not an easy person, so why not put that up front and on full throttle so that it’s a known quantity? If they could only handle her on her sweet and mild days, that’s of no use in the field when things get hot and feisty. Test their stress levels now before having them blow a gasket or crack under pressure when she’s ACTUALLY counting on them.

Speaking of, having someone be mad or frustrated at you and seeing how they handle that is very telling in all sorts of ways. Sure, they could say or do things they “don’t mean”, but how a person reacts when angry or drunk are certainly things to consider when they’re more in control of their public construct. Reese doesn’t let inconsequential things like being mocked or challenged affect him in the slightest (usually), which is a good thing when you’re constantly in situations where a kneejerk emotional response could distract from the mission and get everyone killed or worse. Ever wonder why drill instructors are always seen as yelling and abusive in shows? Part of it is to break down the mental construct and ego the recruits have, but part of it is to get them used to not needing to react to insults, to ignore irrelevant stimulus. You get mad and pop your drill sergeant one for insulting your mama, that’s probably a damned good sign you’ve got control issues. (Not saying that I think it’s a training method I condone or that it’s effectively done all that often, but that seems to be at least in part the theory for why it’s done like that.)

Her clashes with the Finch could be seen as her resentment over his similarities to Cole, a close friend whom she deeply admired for his brilliance, and whom admired her fiercely right back--and dies telling her so. In his “place” was this disapproving little prissy fussbucket of a man*. The writers made early season three Finch a bit over the top there to make this point, I believe--I hated seeing him portrayed thusly, but it makes SOME sense if we were to see her contrasting him to Cole. He was possibly more brilliant than Cole, but he WAS. NOT. COLE! Having him there where Cole would normally be, brilliant mind wasted on ops that to her view at the time were actually irrelevant instead of titled Irrelevant, had to have reminded her of her huge loss and filled her with resentment. “You guys aren’t better than us; you’re definitely not better than HIM! You will NEVER replace him” which seems a bit of a natural, if not very gracious, human reaction to unexpected and unwanted change, especially with such a personal loss tied to it.

And of course a part of it was her cynical nature, not believing the “tossing the starfish back into the sea” method was actually accomplishing anything, which, for her, was hard to take seriously when she was used to a bigger picture approach with individuals being next to meaningless. It wasn’t till she was able to change her paradigm with the example of Gen and Harold’s responses that she was able to accept the Team’s core premise, and from there she allowed herself to embrace being a part of that team instead of this being a side job till she found something else to do. I think it helped that Root took her away right as she was really feeling this changing perspective, ‘cause there’s nothing like thinking about having something and being forced unexpectedly not to be able to have it to make you decide, OMG, I HAVE TO HAVE IT NOWWWWWW!!

So those are my thoughts on why Shaw didn’t care how well she blended undercover or act like a team player till after Razgovor/Mors. It’s not that she couldn’t do those things, it’s that she simply hadn’t fully thrown her hat into the ring — she wasn’t acting like a team member because to her mind she was not part of the team yet. Once she invested herself into the mission and the people, she pulled her full weight — mouthy the whole way, of course, but snapping at her running mate’s heels to get him into line (there is no DEAD in TEAM) as much as complaining about the weight of the haul and snarking about doing it her way when she deems it necessary. It’s just her style. ;) Sarcasm and reaction prodding are as necessary as breathing to her. Once she accepted the team as her own, she was there 100% and more. “We just got you back!”

Also, re: Harold’s assessment of Shaw as not a team player, we should consider that Reese and Harold have both commented on Harold’s lack of social ease, but it’s OBVIOUS he’s way more skilled at managing people on a large and small scale than Reese or Shaw. This show is simply chock full of unreliable narrators, and the lies and stories they tell to and about themselves is just as interesting as the truths we shake out of them!

I would like to note here that now that we know of Dillinger, Finch’s harping on Shaw about means and method were probably due strongly in part to his terror that he’d have another morally bankrupt operative on his hands. They obviously desperately need as much help as they can possibly get, but his trust has been burned often and in many ways, so while she’d be offended in the extreme to be likened to a traitorous mercenary like Dillinger, we can’t really blame Finch for worrying that she was as blase about them and the mission, especially considering that’s the front she was giving them at the time.

 

 

 

### SYMPOSIUM: Sameen Shaw is Magnificent by Any Label

_With contributions by DEM2, grimorie, lookninjas and offkilter  
_

 

###### Grimorie: "This isn't the face of a woman who doesn't care"

Shaw takes failing very hard. I don’t think she can articulate it herself, but its there if you look at it. The thing is, being neuroatypical cost her a lot, it cost her career, and after her father died it cost her a lot more too.

As a doctor Shaw revived a man four times before he finally died and the Chief Resident called her actions heroic and then condemned her in the same breath. She’s not normal, he tells her and she was only a doctor because she wants to be technically proficient. He claims to have observed her but lacked the fundamental understanding of who she was. Then he twisted the knife and arm chair diagnosed Shaw as a DSM-IV claiming that Shaw would get bored eventually because she didn’t care. **  
**

     

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This isn’t the face of a woman who doesn’t care or a face of a woman who’d get bored saving lives. It must’ve been a gut punch hearing those words and knowing that she can’t have the career she’s worked for. But because she couldn’t feel the full weight of her emotions her reaction is subdued.

Shaw cared, sure the amount of people she can acknowledge caring about are few, but she cared. Also she cares a whole damn lot about saving people’s lives. When everything with Gen went sideways, Shaw didn’t take it too well when she thought Harold was benching her:

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We see this again when they failed to save a Number (Leona Wainwright) Vigilance took out. This was how they looked after they failed to save Leona:

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And it took the progression of the season but Shaw came to care for Harold and John, she called them her friends, that’s not an easy thing Shaw can call anyone. By season’s end they were more than friends to her, they’ve become family.

   

   

 

###### DEM2: "Personality disorder is not a dirty word."

  **Personality disorder is not a dirty word.**  I would no more tell someone she doesn’t know her own experience than I would tell her she doesn’t experience depressive episodes (depressive disorder) or anxiety (anxiety disorder) or have autism (neurodevelopmental disorder) or schizophrenia (psychotic disorder). Personality disorder is simply a label given to describe a long-standing and pervasive style of thinking, feeling, and behaving that is far outside the norm **and** that negatively impacts/restricts a person’s social and/or vocational functioning.

 **Personality (disorder) is not black/white or on/off.**  Like everything having to do with traits (or even episodic conditions like depression or anxiety), persons can experience or exhibit more or less of some traits and not others.

Not all happy people are alike. Not all sociable people are alike. Not all people with depression present exactly the same way. That does not mean that the ‘non-prototypical’ people are _not_ content or extroverted or depressed, respectively.

The cluster of clinical personality types that is variously called antisocial, sociopathic, psychopathic, and dissocial **does not equal evil or sadistic or serial killer**.  The affective features also are not the same as those seen in autism.

 **No diagnostic system is perfect. No personality theory is perfect. Humans are messy.** Diagnoses can be useful tools for organising treatment (and, at least in the U.S., necessary for making sure a client can claim insurance coverage for said treatment). _For many people they are useful for self-understanding._

Shaw _knows_ she doesn’t experience the depth of emotions that most others do, even given the wide range of what is called normal.  Shaw knows that violence feels good to her.  Shaw knows that she doesn’t experience interpersonal concern for (non-stranger) others as readily as the average person does.  She has both said these things and demonstrated them in a number of situations.

 ** _Shaw has adapted._**  She found her niche.

Person of Interest decided to make Shaw ‘funny’ (as Michael Emerson called her) as a way to make her more palatable to the audience, but her 'funnier' presentation doesn’t make what Shaw says, does, thinks, or feels any less real.

 

 

###### lookninjas: "Diagnostic labels are shorthand."

Speaking as someone with her own set of DSM labels  — you know, some days they seem to fit, and then others they don’t, and some days I don’t think I need them and some days I think I need to add a few more to the list.  I may not always like my labels, but they’re a convenient shorthand for a lot of things and they’re useful in a lot of ways.

But at the same time, I have a very limited patience for diagnostic labels (and for a lot of clinical terms), because shorthand is all they are.  They’re catch-all terms for a constellation of symptoms — some of which I have and some of which I don’t and some that are really strong and some that are really weak and some that are innate and some that are probably learned defensive mechanisms and all of which affect me to some degree most (if not all of the time) but to varying degrees and at varying times.

What’s interesting to me is that Shaw seems to have adopted the first label she was given.  That she seems to have been aware that she was “wired differently” for some time, that she accepts so readily that she lacks feelings, and that she actually lets it stop her from becoming a doctor.  But at the same time, she doesn’t become Root or Zoe or even Kara — she goes into (or back into) the Marines, and later joins ISA, because even if she’s good at killing people, that doesn’t mean she’s just going to kill whoever.  There needs to be a purpose.  Lack of feeling isn’t a lack of morals.

And, of course, it’s not entirely certain that Shaw lacks emotion — I think most of us would argue that she does show some:  her affection for Bear, her infatuation with Carter, her concern for Root.  But I think it says a lot about her, and how she’s been treated, and what she’s internalized as a result of that treatment, that she’s perfectly willing to believe that she really doesn’t feel anything except for anger.

Or, at least, she believes it right up until a ten year-old tells her that she does have emotions, that she just needs to listen for them.

I don’t think Shaw’s affect is ever going to lift that much, but it does seem to be lifting slightly.  And how she’s going to cope with that and what that’s going to mean to her and her image of herself (when she actually has a moment to sit down and acknowledge it) is something I’m not willing to speculate on because there’s too many unknowns.

Whether or not “Axis II Personality Disorder” says a lot about Shaw’s psychology, how she got the label and why she kept it and how she used it and whether or not it’s starting to outlive its usefulness actually tells us a ton about who she is and how she sees herself and what parts of herself she’s willing to write off and what she refuses to sacrifice.

 

###### offkilter: Musical Affinity and the Forest or the Trees

While even Shaw states she doesn’t “get” emotions and people take her word at it (why do we believe our beloved unreliable narrators so much?!) my general impression is that individuals don’t stand out so much to her, not really, that overall people are … white noise, incoherent background roaring. It’s not so much that she CANNOT tune in and hear, understand, and make very astute observations on individuals so much as it’s just a lot of work to pay attention, and usually the results seem so not worth so the internal effort. She can see the patterns and interpret emotions and motivations just fine: she knows why Special Counsel sent out his kill order; after taking restock of Finch and Reese from the initial shocking intro, she does think they’re “good guys,” even if she isn’t sure she wants any part of their crusade; she knows how the sleazeball Liberty is manipulating women; she knows exactly how to find and poke at the boys’ buttons, etc. But she’s less sure why she should let all that flap affect HER internal state.

Consider emotional resonance to individuals and in herself as something like musical affinity.  For example, I personally like music, enjoy songs when they turn up, can really get in a groove, but the amount of time and energy a huge portion of people put into collecting, discussing, thinking, playing, performing, and just listening to music often baffles me, while they pity my barely-understanding-the-idea-of-music life. It’s not that music isn’t part of my life, but it’s definitely not much of a PRIORITY in my life. I don’t have “favorite” bands or have ever cared about ranking albums, I have paid to go to exactly two concerts in my life and really don’t feel I’ve missed out on things, etc. Heck, I just looked at my iPhone and have NO SONGS on it while a huge range of podcasts suck up my storage banks. Audiophiles amaze me, but I just can’t be bothered to think about it too much. Shaw might be similar in emotions and personal connections. She’s got her own inner music, but paying attention to it all that often or sharing it with others is just not something she cares for very much.

I think there’s also a forest for the trees perspective coming into play as well. It might that she thinks through and commits to CAUSES rather than individuals usually because the bigger picture is something she can appreciate more, and funnel it through individual tasks of cutting a swath of trees in one area to save the forest overall, where as my headcanon of Reese as being an uber-romantic soul, I think he intimately sees trees falling all around him all the time, and he has to force himself to gain some distance as a survival tactic. In a way, they both need someone like Finch and his Cause for very different reasons—Shaw needs an anchor point to funnel her toward specific projects, while Reese needs structure and a lens through which to FOCUS to keep his energies from bleeding out all over the place.

We could interpret in very broad strokes that Shaw has an affinity for general principles to interpret specific people, Reese has affinity for specific people which he uses to interpret general principles. Deductive vs Inductive.

Regarding the idea that without Finch the spysassins might end up freelance saving people one at a time, I think Reese could have had individuals hit him up for help though he’d quickly get overwhelmed by the sheer amount of help needed and possibly that’s what made him near catatonic by the time we saw him in the pilot, but Shaw would just hide from them and rebuff before they’d a chance to engage her beyond the superficial. However, I could see her evaluating bigger agendas and looking into various causes and wars, putting her back into an effort she’s evaluated more distantly as worthy before buying in.

 

### SYMPOSIUM KEYNOTE: Sameen Shaw is Magnificent by Any Label

 _by DEM2_ ****

Of course psych-related constructs are just that — constructs — and don’t have material existence in the way that my chair has existence. Constructs are ways to understand and organise observations.  Empathy, too, is a construct, and thousands of years since the first person noticed that people show an ability to ‘feel’ other people’s pain and put a label on that, social scientists are still debating the nature and limits of empathy.  Does that mean we should look askance at ‘this notion of so-called empathy’?

That is all I mean when I say that personality and various social-emotional-behavioural-cognitive patterns to which we give labels exist. Our understanding and use of constructs, and the labels we give them, can be messy or lacking in validity and reliability. They are the outputs of human endeavours, after all.

The word disorder, itself, should be taken as shorthand for ‘cluster of problems related to X’ (e.g., depressive disorder is a cluster of problems related to depressed mood). I do understand that the term may rankle and I sympathise, but when I use it, at least, it is not meant pejoratively.

Yes, there are problems with the DSM.  Yes, there are problems with the ICD. The research around antisocial personality disorder and psychopathy is fraught with problems that are the result of trying to make the DSM more behaviourally-based in order to improve diagnostic reliability. Previously, the DSM contained a lot more fluffy, ineffable psychodynamic language that was more appropriate to the domains of research and treatment, rather than diagnosis.

The DSM’s AsPD is actually narrower than psychopathy. It largely fails to capture the interpersonal and affective aspects and, thus, mainly describes one ‘subtype’. The criteria also may miss women, because girls are less likely to show prototypical conduct disorder behaviour in childhood and may even have a later onset.  So when people say that Shaw doesn’t exhibit AsPD, they’re _kind of_ right.

THE POINT: Psychopathic personality should not be dismissed as a construct just because there is squish.  At best such dismissal leads to interpersonal misunderstanding; at worst it leads to lack of intervention or inappropriate intervention.

From here on out, I’m going to switch to using ‘dissocial’. Even though it's not exactly equivalent, it carries less baggage than psychopathy and is more descriptively useful.

So where am I going with all this? Coming from a place of having professional/academic (and familial) experience with personality disorders, when I watch Shaw after she’s given me a specific rubric, that rubric is a somewhat handy lens for interpreting her behaviour — for understanding what the screenwriters are trying to convey. I accept the label because I assume that the writers are trying to say something about the character, rather than provide a critique of behavioural sciences or mental health diagnostics.

For example, failure to engage emotionally can have many different causes. It could be regular, everyday wariness.  Ongoing, there may be a neurocognitive underpinning as in autism. It may be the result of either interpersonal trauma (as in abuse) or physical trauma (as in brain injury).

In Shaw’s case, it’s none of the above. Person of Interest, both inter- and extra-textually (in interviews), specified that Shaw does not have a spectrum disorder and “nothing bad happened to her to make her this way.” So I take from that that Shaw isn’t ‘repressing’ or even being overly-guarded.  When she says that when she kills you she won’t care, then proceeds to enjoy a cold one next to your corpse, I take her at her word.

Genrika’s metaphor has some value, but it's always bothered me because it suggested receiver error, rather than transmission error. The research is far from settled on this, but it strongly points toward the latter.  Listening harder to bad signal could be helpful, perhaps, but I get a bit uncomfortable because that could lead to blaming the person for not trying hard enough. It's not just that the sound is low; it's more that some significant proportion of the time, **there is no sound at all**.

Secondly, traits should be regarded as lying on continua, rather than as discrete categories.  Affective expression, level of aggression, tendency to manipulate, etc. — all of these are dimensional. Shaw seems higher in some areas and lower in others. She’s never displayed the level of arrogance of Elias, or the grandiose narcissism of Original-Root, but she’s also never displayed the malaise or feelings of regret or guilt that Reese has displayed.

Dissocial PD, like the traits which comprise it, is dimensional. Popular culture tends to depict only the extreme end of the spectrum.

Related to that, I can’t expect or assume that Shaw’s “happy or sad or lonely” is the same as Average Person’s “happy or sad or lonely.” Her Three shouldn’t be assumed to be a Ten. Such assumptions when not met lead to accusations of evil or Machiavellian or willful disregard that may be unwarranted.

And that’s how I understood her remarks to Genrika. “Based on my observations and dealing with people, I know that what I would call X isn’t up to the level of what you would call X, so I probably shouldn’t use those words to describe myself, and please don’t assume that I can get that far with you.”

Third, I would not expect her to have trouble reading people or even understanding them intellectually. When Shaw guessed that Reese loved Jessica, that told me nothing about whether she empathised with him. Knowing and feeling are not the same thing. Indeed, nowhere is that distinction made more clearly than in dissocial PD. (She may have empathised to some extent, but that wasn’t the point of the scene. That scene belonged to Reese and his POV.)

Finally, about that chat with the Chief in Devil’s Share.  That guy gets a lot of grief that ought more rightly, IMO, be placed on less-than-polished writing and time constraints. That was only Shaw’s second flashback and the writers tried to introduce new details and reinforce old ones in a very short period of time. He was a guest, she is our protagonist. Yes, there are less-than-caring doctors, so on its face that shouldn’t have disqualified her.  What I took from that scene:

  * Shaw’s lack of empathy for her patients (and their families) was an ongoing concern, not a single event.

  * This wasn’t just a matter of masculine-like reserve.

  * Shaw showed no recognition that the eating while delivering devastating news was the problem. If she had, she might have said, “Yeah, I don’t know what I was thinking!” Instead, she was a blank wall, waiting for him to get to the point.

  * Shaw truly couldn’t feel in her gut the difference between clinical distance and lack of empathy.

  * Shaw finally admitted that no, she doesn’t have those feelings, but why should that matter if she’s getting the job done.




From what I’ve seen of Shaw, if she were determined to practice medicine, I think she would have fought on (some kind of way). I have to wonder whether she took that talk as a chance to take stock of her life and concluded Medicine wasn’t “getting it done” for her. Perhaps, even though she was angry in the moment, in the long run it was actually liberating.  She found a vocation where her way of being wasn’t a deficit.

What I love about Sameen Shaw, psychologically, as a character: She is complex and complicated.  She is a woman with dissocial personality but she’s neither an Ice Queen nor a serial killer, and she shows a high degree of self-awareness.  Indeed, she left medicine but remained on the side of ‘good’. Reese was a psychological False Positive for Black Ops, and it broke him. Shaw was a True Positive, and yet, and yet….

 

 

### On Operational Character

_by Hagar  
_

The term is “deniable assets”: they are the people who go alone into dangerous situations, without backup and without the expectation of it. They stay in those situations for weeks or months (or sometimes years). Nobody will be coming for them if anything goes wrong, and they know that going in. “In the end we’re all alone, and nobody’s coming” is the truth of “deniable assets”. If deniable assets get killed or injured or captured, nobody’s coming to get them. They are, after all, deniable.

Injury, torture and death are not the only risks of the job. The other risk of the job is moral. This job sends people into a literal, physical wilderness from which they need to find their way back safely. It also sends them away into a moral no man’s land, away from the ordinary rules of civilised society. Recall that SOF operatives (and their non-military counterparts) are selected and trained for psychological survival, just like they’re trained for physical survival. All the combat-medicine training in the world won’t always save your life - and the most stringent selection and all the psych preparation won’t always be enough, either. Whether it’s the physical or the moral wilderness you lost your way in, in the end you’re all alone and nobody’s coming to get you.

There’s a quote from a person who was a Mossad trainer (brought by Gad Shimron). This person said, We teach [our operatives] to lie and steal and kill: we send them out there, where they’re effectively unsupervised, and tell them to lie and steal and kill. And then when they come home we expect them to be model citizens, attract no attention at the grocery store and play with their children.

“Operational character” is the ability to do that: to be able to step out of the moral conventions of ordinary society then step back into them, and not get lost in a moral wilderness. It’s the ability to remain fundamentally the same person, with the same values and the same loyalties, under conditions of immense stress: beyond enemy lines, always on the lookout, perhaps hungry and thirsty, perhaps injured - and often enough, alone.  Importantly, and contrary to common depictions in fiction, the ability to do so involves quite a bit of self-awareness and the ability to negotiate one’s mind (rather than ignore and silence parts of it). Yes, one may need to set aside one’s emotions and other aspects of oneself for a while - but long-term mental health depends on the ability to integrate. This is one of the reasons that training for these roles will push these people very near to their breaking point in every possible way, and keep them there for a while: the purpose is to learn to navigate this psychological territory, to become familiar with it in controlled circumstances. In a fundamental way, this is similar to learning physical skills such as hand-to-hand combat: it’s about training and conditioning.

There is a term from moral theory that is relevant here. This term is moral remains. Consider a situation in which the best thing you can do (perhaps the best thing anyone could do) is still a terrible thing. You would not be guilty for having done the right thing - but you would feel guilty anyway. This guilt is the moral remains. Now let’s apply this to SOF operatives and similar intell officers. Specifically, let’s apply this to two examples from Person of Interest canon: John and Kara. John and Kara illustrate two ways in which operational character can fail. They both lost the ability to integrate their identity; they just failed in different ways. John became too overwhelmed with pain and guilt: he lost the distinction between feeling guilt and being guilty. Kara, conversely, stopped grieving for the moral price of her work at all: in her own words, she did not just walk in the dark but have become the Dark.

Shaw, on the other hand, is perfect.

Shaw’s psychological idiosyncrasies as depicted in canon (and see DEM2’s keynote for elaboration) are an advantage in this environment. She will not become like Kara: Shaw learned how to not lose her way in the moral wilderness long before she became SOF. Shaw’s idiosyncrasies mean that she’d had to learn that just to be a member of ordinary society. And because of the same idiosyncrasies she will also not become like John:  where she acts for the right reasons, Shaw doesn’t feel guilty or become distressed.

Shaw isn’t a classical example of operational character: she was too unusual to begin with. That, however, doesn’t mean that she hasn’t achieved the necessary adaptation. I would like to close this section with Sameen Shaw’s own words about herself and her moral character (from episode s-3e17 /): “If [being an intel officer] taught me anything, it's that how you do matters as much as what you do. And by that metric, you're all just terrorists. And I kill terrorists. ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> offkilter's essay, _Sameen Shaw & Team Machine_, draws from the following conversations: one tumblr - [one](http://kindaoffkilter.tumblr.com/post/86503393899/isagrimorie-hagar-972-from-here-for%0A), [two](http://kindaoffkilter.tumblr.com/post/86650848639/sorry-to-butt-in-this-way-instead-of-in-post-but-i) and [three](http://hagar-972.tumblr.com/post/87203943719/kindaoffkilter-isagrimorie-relevance-a); from poidiscuss - [one](https://www.personofinterestdiscussion.com/comment/32302#comment-32302), [two](https://personofinterestdiscussion.com/comment/32609#comment-32609) and [three](https://personofinterestdiscussion.com/comment/32628#comment-32628).
> 
> grimorie's original pictorial is [here](http://isagrimorie.tumblr.com/post/86594147696/ive-been-looking-back-and-ive-noticed-that-shaw).


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